Burdens to Blessings: Discover the Power of your Story

By Kim Crabill

From the time Kim Crabill experienced a life-altering trauma at age four, she became an expert in hiding her hurt and confusion behind a mask. The trick, she discovered, was to sing a little louder in choir, study a little harder at school, and smile a little wider with friends. Then no one would notice how damaged her heart was.


 


Kim became a classic overachiever academically and socially. As an adult, she could even speak before crowds with her mask fully intact. But she could not hide from the pain of her past, and pain that expressed itself through anorexia and diet pill addiction, loneliness, depression, and anxiety attacks.


 


In her transparent story, Burdens to Blessings, Kim invites you along her journey from shame and sadness toward healing and hope. In the process you will encounter the upside-down truth that God uses you because of your hurt and uncertainty. The very things you regret the most—the things you hope no one ever discovers about you—are what God wants to use to enrich your life and the lives of others around you.


 


Discover the confidence and courage to quit hiding and show your true self to God and others. Then watch out, because you will be showered with opportunities beyond your wildest dreams to help other hurting people change their burdens to blessings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Release date: Oct 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781424552979

Kim Crabill

KIM CRABILL is the founder and president of Roses and Rainbows Ministries, Inc., and Community COFFEEs (Conversations of Friends of Faith to Encourage and Equip). Her message and passion come from her personal experience of longing to be used by God yet feeling unusable because of past abuse leading to anorexia, diet pill addiction, and depression. Her mother’s death-bed challenge set Kim on a new path. Kim has traveled nationally for more than twenty years, speaking at retreats, conferences, and to Bible study groups, and has been interviewed on national TV and radio. Kim draws upon personal experiences, biblical principles, and her training in counseling to inspire and challenge women to dare to be all God created them to be. When not following her ministry passion, Kim follows her first passion of being a wife and mom. Kim and her husband, Lee, have been married thirty years and have two adult sons (and two shih tzus). For more information about Kim, Roses and Rainbows Ministries, Inc., the nationwide Community COFFEE gatherings, and Kim’s books and speaking engagements, visit RosesAndRainbows.org  

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Brown-Bag Burdens

(What You Need to Know Before You Read Any Further)

It all began in our local grocery store. I had prepared for the Bible study I’d be leading the next day and was now grabbing a few snacks for our introductory session. As I walked down the paper goods aisle, I had this overwhelming urge to purchase, of all things, brown paper lunch bags. Now, I have to stop here and explain why this urge was so phenomenal. You see, as a Southern-born-and-bred woman, I don’t do ugly brown bags! I prefer raspberry and lime green with a hint of polka dots or powder-pink with an orange sherbet stripe. A brown paper bag would never enter my mind except as an object of derision. So you can imagine my dilemma as I stood looking at those bags and thinking that the urge to purchase them was a divine urge. I was pretty sure I was not only supposed to buy them, but also to hand them out to my guests.

Oh no, no, NO! I plowed on past the bags, determined to ignore my urge. You’ll be sorry! was the next thought to enter my mind. Do you really want to fight these crowds again just to come back and buy those ugly bags? Because you will be buying them!

Who is talking? I asked myself (though I was pretty sure I knew). Is this a joke? (Again, I knew the answer to my own question—it wasn’t a joke.) I reversed my cart and returned to the aisle with the paper bags. Just looking at them made me cringe.

I tried bargaining. You know, I suggested, if—and I mean if—I really will need paper bags I will just stroll on over to the gift wrapping section. At least there I can buy some pretty bags! I can coordinate with the season or, even better, with my kitchen décor!

I was pretty proud of my proposed compromise, but the insistent voice was not. No! Not raspberry and lime green with a hint of polka dots, not powder pink with an orange sherbet stripe, not seasonal, not even trendy taupe … only plain old brown paper bags will do.

We all have brown paper bags that we carry around to hold our hurts.

With my confusion and frustration rising, I grabbed the silly bags and stuck them in the back of the grocery cart underneath the raspberry-colored toilet paper.

Driving home, doubts crept in. God, was that You? As crazy as this sounds, are You behind this brown bag incident in which I just embarrassed myself at the grocery store?

Turns out He was behind it, and soon I knew why.

Ladies, Pack Your Bags

Standing before the group the next morning, I gave each woman in the room an ugly brown paper bag. Then I asked, If you could pack anything in this bag that you would like to eat, what would it be? What a wonderful icebreaker! Our answers told a lot about who we were and where we came from. It was fun! But no one was prepared for my next question: What’s in the bag that’s eating at you?

Over the course of the previous evening, I had again asked God, Why the bags? Then I spent time listening for His answer. I began to realize we all have brown paper bags that we carry around to hold our hurts, tragedies, disappointments, unfulfilled dreams, abuses, addictions, and more. None of us, Southern or not, like these bags. We just aren’t quite sure what to do with them. We try to hide them. And, oh yes, we definitely try to pretty them up with our busy little lives, happy little smiles, and peppy little personalities. But no matter what we do, we know they are there, don’t we? I can say this so assuredly because I carried around my bag for more than twenty-five years.

The worse part about bags and their burdensome contents is that they eat away at us no matter how cleverly we try to deny their existence. They nibble at our peace and happiness. They erode our confidence and competence. They gobble up our sense of self-worth. Then, when opportunities come—to serve in our churches, to be a PTA officer, to invite a new neighbor for coffee, to just participate in life—our damaged selves respond in one of two ways: We say yes to all of it to prove our bags cannot hold us hostage, or we decline every opportunity out of fear that participation of any sort will expose what’s in our bags. Either way, our bags full of burdens rob us of real life.

I knew God was behind the brown bag idea because He and I had previously done business with my own brown bag. As I found the courage to open my bag and let God see what was in it, I found an amazing thing: God was standing there in the ugly brown bag! He wasn’t put off by my hurts and burdens; He was right in the midst of them, and He was waiting for me there!

That’s a long story that will unfold as you read this book. For now, get yourself an ugly brown paper bag. Don’t feel pressured to do anything with it yet. Eventually, chapter by chapter, you’ll discover ways to use your bag. At times, you’ll want to stash things in the bag. At other times, you’ll feel led to take a fresh look at its contents. The bag will become something unique for each woman who uses this book, but one thing will remain the same for everyone: When you look in your bag, God will be there.

And because of His presence, all those things that have been eating at you will get transformed. From within that ugly bag of burdens will spill forth blessings that God will use to refresh and feed you and the multitude of hurting people all around you. So grab your brown bag and let’s get started.

CHAPTER ONE

A Princess Story Goes Wrong

I have found that when a person finds the courage to be herself and share her story, it gives those around her the freedom to be similarly vulnerable and transparent. This is where burdens become blessings. With that outcome in mind, I begin my story.

Travel with me back to 1962. I was four years old and living in a small town tucked near the Blue Ridge Parkway with a mom, a dad, two brothers, and two sisters. Being the youngest, I was the princess. Not that I was surrounded by royal trumpeters or ladies-in-waiting, but I was surrounded by my daddy’s love. Every time he looked at me, his big smile let me know how much he loved me.

I couldn’t imagine anything better than life in this small town. I delighted in waking each morning to the sound of WBOB, the local radio station, and the smell of bacon on the stove. Even my regular chores were made fun by the fact that, after they were done, I could spend time in my palace—an old reconstructed coal shed. Every afternoon at 3:00, with Mama close behind, I would run down the steps of our white-framed house, across the train tracks, and into the heart of our town where I would watch for Daddy’s head to pop up over the hill as he made his way home from the textile mill. He always made me giggle at his look of surprise that I was there. Even though he was exhausted from a long day of shift work, he would break into his big smile. That was my signal to start running—right into the arms of this man who loved me so much. I can recall the sense of security I would feel each time I tucked my hand in his to begin our walk home. My dad was six foot four, so my arm would soon become completely numb from holding it up so high for so long to maintain my grasp of his hand. But that was OK—I sure wasn’t letting go!

The Day I’ll Never Forget

The day I’ll never forget began as a beautiful autumn day in Virginia. The leaves glistened with changing colors. The air was crisp and cool. As I headed to my palace to play, I had no reason to expect that this wouldn’t be another great day for a four-year-old princess.

When I heard Mama and Daddy calling me to come in, I wasn’t surprised. I had noticed company arriving. But when I walked through the front door I was startled by the mood in our little home. It seemed so gloomy. And why were all eyes on me? I lowered my head, hiding behind my long blonde curls. I felt embarrassed.

Mama was holding my church dress, my black patent leather shoes, and my favorite hair bows. Even though I noticed the sad look on her face, I felt a rush of excitement as she told me I was going to wear my favorite clothes to a very special place that day. But then I saw something I had never seen before: tears sliding down Mama’s face.

Later that evening, dressed in my Sunday best, I stood at the back of the church, waiting, with a rice packet in one hand and my packed suitcase in the other. I kept replaying Mama’s strange words to me: Kim, you know how much we love you. You must always remember that. But today, things will change. You are not going to live with us anymore. Kim, I know this will be very hard but promise me that you will try to be a big girl.

As the organ’s music neared its end, I began to understand that life as I had always known it was ending as well.

It would take years for me to understand that Mama and Daddy were not my biological parents. They were my grandparents. Linda, who I thought was my sister, was in fact my mother. The special place I had been dressed to attend was her wedding to my biological father. After the ceremony, I would leave to begin my new life with them.

I hadn’t believed Mama when she said I had to leave. I was sure Daddy would make it OK. Hadn’t he always made things OK? I knew he loved me way too much to let me go.

The organ was silent now; the vows were said. My new parents approached me and said it was time to go. Be a big girl, I told myself, and I was truly trying to be and probably would have been had I not seen Daddy. The eyes that had only beamed with excitement and delight when he looked at me now revealed sadness. Had I done something wrong? What I saw in his eyes overwhelmed me, and I began to sob. I stretched out my arms to him. Please, don’t make me go. Please! Then, turning to those who were taking me away, I tried bargaining: I’ll give you my hair bows and my black patent leather shoes. Just, please, don’t make me go away!

The next thing I recall is total darkness. I was in a new house, a new bedroom with no sounds, no familiar smells, and no stream of light like the one that flowed from the streetlight outside my other bedroom. Fear engulfed me. I felt so small in such a vast darkness that I was sure at any moment I would forever be lost. Shivering, I pulled the covers up to my chin, but it didn’t help. I wasn’t shivering from the cold; I was shivering from fear.

Amid the darkness, I could hear something. I listened intently. Was it Daddy? Had he found me? I knew he wouldn’t let me go! But it wasn’t Daddy. It was only a song, one I’d heard before. Jesus loves me, this I know. I used to sing it while swinging on the front porch at night, serenading Daddy. Many times at song’s end, I had giggled in disbelief when Daddy told me that, as much as he loved me, there was someone who loved me even more. No way, I recall thinking. How could that be?

Now, as an adult, I know my Daddy was right. He had planted truth in my heart: There is someone, Jesus, who does indeed love me more than anyone else can. And it was Jesus who made His way through the dark night to a lonely little girl who was about to begin a turbulent and sometimes terrifying journey toward understanding and accepting His great love.

Meanwhile, the pain had begun, the pain no one else knew about. The pain of a four-year-old girl snatched from the only home she had ever known. Literally pulled from the arms of her daddy as tears streamed down his face. That memory evoked such grief and loss that, for many years, I was unable to stumble my way clear of the devastation. So I tucked away that profound hurt deep inside the darkest corner of my heart, marking the beginning of a life full of pretense and masquerade, beginning with a little girl’s desire to conform and please; spiraling into a teenager’s diet pill addiction, anorexia, and suicidal tendencies; and leading into a young woman’s depression and life of lies camouflaged by busyness, social events, and church membership.

The moment you lose who you are, you start to become who everyone else perceives you should be.

My foundation had been shattered on that fall day in Virginia, my safety and security ripped away. I wasn’t who I thought I was. I wasn’t where I thought I belonged. I began to lose myself in a tumult of unanswered questions. Looking back, I realize the moment you lose who you are, you start to become who everyone else perceives you should be. The moment you lose what you thought you were supposed to do you begin to do what everyone else expects that you should do.

Nothing But a Mistake

One scene from my new life stands out vividly in my mind even today. I had run upstairs to my bedroom to escape the tension and quarrels that were a routine part of life